


Gotcha

by towardsmorning



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-05
Updated: 2012-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-28 23:17:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/313258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towardsmorning/pseuds/towardsmorning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one in which Amy actually is a police officer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gotcha

**Author's Note:**

> Done for a prompt. Extremely brief, but the idea intrigued me; I may write more of this some day.

When Amy tells people who ask what she does that she's a police officer, the first reaction she gets tends to be laughter. After a moment, when they realize that it wasn't a joke, there are many different ways people try to cover up their reaction- they pretend to be impressed at her youth, or they make comments about how they thought all officers were uptight. She knows what they really think, but she doesn't much care for the opinions of others, so it all balances out in the end.

The thing is, even Amy doesn't really understand it. Depending on the day and her mood she'll justify her choice differently. One day she'll wonder if it's a way out, except that she's still in Leadworth. Some days it seems as though it's an effort to fit in, a thin veneer of respectability to try and tell the residents who had clucked and shaken their heads at her look, Amy really isn't like Amelia, but it doesn't work and nobody is fooled. Even Rory seems to realise that his childhood friend hasn't really grown up to be the respectable sort-of girlfriend, and Rory can think the best of anyone on these matters (or rather, can think what he considers the best).

The biggest upside is that when she finds the Doctor breaking and entering, she's got the handcuffs ready and waiting. Yet when her hand goes to her radio, she pauses, and turns away so that when he wakes up, he can't see that she's talking to herself.

*

Between the terror and the confusion and her anger at him, Amy feels pure exhilaration as she follows the Doctor- not just at the fact that her Raggedy Doctor had finally, finally come back, not even at proving everyone who had thought she was broken and delusional wrong, but at just how good it felt to be breaking the rules that she had spent so long resenting. In the back of her mind she knows that this can't be anything close to what she's supposed to be doing, knows that she might get fired for this kind of thing, knows that it's not a good idea, but a larger part of her asks, he's back, does it even matter anymore?

It does. He leaves. She stays.

*

The Doctor comes back and it still matters.

Amy hadn't lost her job, but nobody had let her forget that fact either. There was an expectation that she be grateful, because you see they could have let her go, but they hadn't, and wasn't it so kind of them to keep one like that, god knows what she'd be up to otherwise-

The sound of his time machine wakes her up. When Amy goes to meet him she isn't the same woman he had known for a day two years ago. She has a ring by her bedside, a dress in her wardrobe, a shattered veneer that never really convinced anybody to start with, and she is so used to watching her step that the feet she walks with want nothing more than a chance to run wherever the hell they please.

The Doctor doesn't say anything, but the look in his eyes makes it clear he knows. He's thinking gotcha. There's no way Amy would ever not come, not now.

She pauses to read the sign on the door. Police Public Call Box.

"Please tell me that's not literal," Amy deadpans, and his laugh echoes in the cavernous room.


End file.
